


How Cruel Your Shadow

by thelawisnotmocked



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Multi, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-17
Updated: 2012-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-05 13:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelawisnotmocked/pseuds/thelawisnotmocked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do you keep from falling?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work really started out as something cute I wanted to work on, along with an exercise in character development and motifs. The latter I may have laid on a bit too heavily, especially at the beginning, so if there's feedback you've got for me on that front, I'd love to hear it. A lot of this is "shippy-if-you-squint" material, so don't get too excited. The main intention of this story is to explore what friends really mean, how they change our lives and shape us, even if it might seem futile and the end. In other words, there's no romance for romance's sake. It's all about how that affects our lives, and how important relationships in general are to us. On that note, I really must thank all my friends for supporting me with this! This is my first work up here, and generally I dislike putting my work up in public, so thank you, everyone, for encouraging me with this. Erika, Piper, and Rory, you are all such huge inspiration to me. Literally, without my experiences with the great friendships I have, this story wouldn't have been written. You're all the best!

“Jingle bells, Captor smells, Pyrope laid an egg!”

Giggles greet your angry scowl, stalking your footsteps like a raucous madman. Sometimes you imagine it a living being, and usually, it has Gamzee’s face.

You are not afraid of them. You are not afraid of anything. Terezi makes a small, hardly noticeable sign to you; her pointer finger traces along the inside of her wrist, oh so lightly. She has this way of touching things with only her fingertips, as if she is transferring the energy of things into her bones. You smile and do the same.

You used to be so scared. The children at school terrified, their loud laughter crashing on your ears like shattered glass, like your chest was a chalkboard and they were digging at it with sharpened fingernails.  Their smiles had too many edges to them, too toothy and big, like they would swallow you up. There were other things, too. Sometimes your shadow moved before you did, as if it knew what you would do, as if everything you ever committed yourself to was predestined. As if you had no control, and you would always be falling.

One time you went missing from class. Your teacher called your parents; the entire staff was searching the school. A tall man with thundering footsteps and a dark blue buttoned T-shirt, found in the men’s bathroom hyperventilating over a toilet. He took you to the office, which only made things worse because you thought you were in trouble. They handed you a phone after a few minutes, and your heart your dads’ voices. They were tight, like rubber bands made into slingshots. You worried they were aiming at you. Angry. Your dad asked if you wanted to come home. You said yes.

You hid in your room that entire day. You never got out of bed. When your dad came home from work, he sat on your mattress. Your legs under the covers seemed like one long stump, and your dad didn’t notice that he was sitting on your feet, but you didn’t care. The pressure, the squeezing, almost felt secure, like for once nothing could get at you. He smiled, a smile so soft and feathery, without teeth and curled lips, the way smiles should be. That was when told you the secret, the secret that made you stop being afraid. “You have armor, Sollux,” he said. “Armor that no one can see. It protects you from people. Doesn’t let anyone get through. And when you need it, you turn it on.” He took your hand, a touch so gentle it didn’t frighten you. He held it like a wounded bird, uncurled your fingers. With a single finger, he touched a spot on the inside of your wrist. “See? You’re a superhero.”

You feel a slight pressure in the palm of your hand. Terezi is pressing her thumb into the piece of skin between your thumb and pointer finger. Her mouth is a little bit twisted, as if she’s bitten into a lemon – which, you think as you notice the drumming sound of the school bus engine, she probably feels like she has.

Terezi has hearing-taste synesthesia.

You walk to the bus behind the other kids, who jostle and run to get on first. Terezi’s cane scrapes against the asphalt in a stuttering pattern, like she’s trying to keep it off the ground. Trying to hide it, the fact that she’s blind. You’re both so different from everyone else. But it doesn’t matter. You’re best friends.

“Can you come over to my house today?” she asks when you’re settled into a bus seat. You fold your scrawny legs up to your chest and put your feet on the grey plastic. You’re one of those kids who can put your fingers around your wrist and go all the way up to the elbow.

“Sure, I gueth.”

“She leans into you, nudging her shoulder against your arm. “Happy birthday, Sollux.”

“Thankth. I gueth I have double digits now.”

Terezi nods. “The big one-oh!” She is beaming at you, and it doesn’t scare you. Terezi has never ever scared you. Not even once.

You put on a cheesy, one-sided smile and put her hand on yours so she can feel your thumbs up. She gives you the same gesture in return.

Something hits you in the back of the head. You whirl around, the crumpled-up paper ball in your fist.

“Sollux and Terezi, sittin’ in a tree! K-I-S-S…”

“ _Thtop it_ , Gamzee!”

The young boy behind you, the boy with messy black hair and torn jeans that show Band-Aids and scabs, shoves his hands between his knees and rocks back and forth gleefully. He ducks down, his forehead nearly touching his kneecaps, before shooting back up straight, then down again, overcome with raucous laughter. “Did I get on your nerves, Thollux?”

“Don’t make fun of me!” You throw the paper ball back at him angrily. You feel yourself a rocket, shooting through the atmosphere uncontrollably, propelled by something you don’t understand. Something needs to pull you down, quick, quick, before you burn in the fires of the stars.

“I KNOW A SONG THAT GETS ON EVERYBODY’S NERVES!”

“Shut UP!” You stand up, try to dive over the seat, fingernails reaching for bronze skin. Terezi pulls on your sleeve. Two gravities tear at you, seams begin to fray, and you wonder if you’ll be cleaved in half, caught in the nether between light and dark.

“I KNOW A SONG THAT GETS ON EVERYBODY’S NERVES!” More people begin to join in, laughing, jeering, taunting. It hurts your ears. You’re starting to hyperventilate.

“I KNOW A SONG THAT GETS ON EVERYBODY’S NERVES AND THIS IS HOW IT GOES – PICK YOUR NOSE!”

Terezi pulls you back down finally, touching your wrist to anchor you. As the round goes on, you close your eyes helplessly. Sometimes… sometimes you get so upset.

 

Terezi moved into your neighborhood when you were six, right into the house next door. That house, as long as you’d known it, had never had anyone living in it. It had peeling paint and two broken windows, the way a proper broken house should look. You were scared to death of it. You remember clutching your father’s hand so tightly you imagined you wouldn’t be able to let go ever again. Deuce was holding a pie in both hands, still wearing his flour-stained apron. The man who’d opened the door was tall and slim, with long pianist’s fingers that wrapped around the door as if it had recently become his most beloved possession. You were more occupied with staring at the baby cradled in a pouch fastened to his chest like a backpack. She giggled happily when she saw you, making a gurgling sound almost like purring. You were wondering where the other girl was – you’d seen her when the family had moved in. She’d walked around a little bit, as if testing the ground, but she was very clumsy and mostly just sat in the grass.

“You’ve certainly got a fixer-upper on your hands, sir,” your dad said, shoving his hands in his pockets like he did when talking to a clerk at Home Depot.

“I’m sure we’ll manage,” the man answered. He turned to you then. “Looks like Nepeta’s taken an interest in you, young man. What’s your name?”

“My… my name ith…” You stuttered, self-conscious of your lisp like you always were during introductions. Your dad motioned encouragingly to continue.

“My name ith Thollux Captor,” you forced out quickly, your rapid flurry of words emphasizing the lisp even more.

“It’s nice to meet you, Sollux. How old are you?”

“Thix.” You were just happy he didn’t botch your name like everyone else.

“My daughter’s your age,” he answered, sounding eager. “Terezi! Terezi!”

Instead of footsteps, you hear a faint scraping on the ground, ever closer, until a young girl with dirty blonde hair stopped in front of you, hiding herself in the shadow created by her father.

“Terezi, there are three people here to see us. One of them is your age. His name is Sollux.”

Terezi smiled, such a bright, happy smile as you had never seen before. It compelled you forward, this alien smile. You stuck out your hand for her to shake. Her head was cocked to one side, as if she was waiting for something. Her father turned and saw you standing there, holding one hand out in the air like a doofus. “Terezi,” he asked, “do you want to shake Sollux’s hand?”

Terezi stuck her hand out with a jerky motion. Unsure of yourself, you shook it. Then you retreated back to your father’s thigh.

“What’th wrong with her?” you whispered, tugging on his jeans.

“Nothing, kiddo,” your dad said back, even more quietly than your own voice. But evidently Terezi heard.

“There _is_ ,” she said loudly, sniffling.

“Terezi…” her father started. Not scolding, not like he was trying to make her stop talking, like grown-ups always did when a kid was about to say something foolish. Sad. He sounded like his heart was breaking as he said the word, like something so precious was lost, or broken, and he couldn’t fix it.

She stomped her foot angrily. “There _is_ something wrong with me! And I’m sick of people telling me there’s not, and that it’ll be okay, and I’ll be okay, and everything’s okay ‘cause it’s _not!_ ” Tears began to slide down her cheeks, single ones, independent and lonely. She crossed her arms over her chest and shivered. She looked like a tower, rising up out of empty ground, like it was born there, meant to be there, but all alone. No one to support it. A tower about to fall.

“I got sick,” she sobbed, hardly able to get the words out. “I got really sick, and now I can’t see, and I’m not normal anymore, and it’s not okay!”

Her father was down on his knees, holding her chin in one hand, wiping her tears with a thumb. You’d never seen anyone looking as sad as he did, not in your yong lifetime. Nepeta reached up with a tiny hand and touched her sister’s face, smiling because she couldn’t yet know the sadness.

You didn’t know what you were doing at the time. Perhaps it was the family itself, united by pain. Perhaps it was because Terezi’s smile had been so compelling, and her tears all the more. You wanted to see that smile again, you wanted to see it forever, and you didn’t want anything to ever take it away. You walked forward, and for once you didn’t think about where your feet were leading you. When your hand rested on her shoulder, she turned around into your arms, long gangly arms that wrapped around her loosely. Shyly. She instinctively returned the embrace, the way children do, squeezing you tightly like she was holding on for dear life, like you were the only thing keeping her from falling. And in that moment, there was an energy between you that would keep you together for the rest of your life.

 

You collapse into your desk right next to Terezi. No matter how many times your times your teacher reassigns seats, you always end up together, as if she knows better than to split you up. The two of you sit in the front two rows most of the time. You’re extremely quiet, finishing your work while the teacher is still explaining it. Terezi raises her hand a lot.

When the bell rings for recess, all of the kids dash out of the classroom. You propel yourself out of your desk with your hands before you realize Terezi is patting her entire desk down with her hands.

“Lothe thomething, Terezi?”

“My… my cane… I can’t find it.”

“I don’t thee it.” You cast about the room. The teacher has already left. “Do you think thomeone…” You stop yourself. It won’t do any good to sit here and talk about it. You have to look for it, and you can’t leave Terezi here. You take her by the crook of her elbow and walk in lockstep to the door. But when you’re out in the hallway, you hear that loud, obnoxious laugh, and a nearly tone-deaf rendition of that wedding march. In his right hand, he twirls a white cane with a red tip.

“Give that back!” you shout. Gamzee giggles, dances on his toes like a puppet. You grit your teeth, your nose wrinkling as your face gets tight and stiff with rage. You start forward, stop. One foot, go, just go, run at him, punch him in the face, get Terezi’s cane back, she’s your friend, come on you big baby.

“Scared, Thollux?”

Your cheeks get hot and you take another step. “Don’t call me that!”

Gamzee laughs again, oscillating almost in a full circle, heel toe, heel toe.

Terezi moves her shoulder up, disentangling her arm from yours. She walks slowly toward Gmazee; slowly, but her feet plant firmly on the tiles. She is grounded… centered… certain… strong. She holds out her left hand. “Gamzee. Give it back.”

Gamzee’s face turns to confusion, then a pout. “Why d’ya hafta ruin everything?” he whines. He deliberately places it in her outstretched palm, then runs away.

You take a few quick skip-steps toward her. “Terezi, I… I’m thorry… I meant… I wath gonna…”

“It’s okay, Sollux.” Her voice is steadying; it calms your pattering heart. “You were right. He’s not worth the effort.”

“I thtill wish…”

“Never mind. Let’s go outside.”

 

Walking back to Terezi’s house, your feet crunch through the dry brown leaves. All around, the trees are singing, and the song makes things bright and alive, everything so vibrant. You were once too small to know that the song is a dirge. That the saying people use, when they say “the trees are ablaze,” is all too apt, because the leaves are dying, one by one falling. Falling like you, falling like Terezi. Every single one of them falling.

You miss the days when you were too young.

The sliding glass door is open in honor of the last warm days of the year. There is a pile of leaves underneath, covering the welcome mat. Terezi’s little sister has heaped them here in the semblance of a nest. Your friend stomps on them happily. She’s described the sound to you as “salty.”

The back door leads directly into the game room, where Terezi keeps her video games and Nepeta keeps her board games and dress-up clothes. To your right, set into the wall, is a narrow stairway leading up to the girls’ bedrooms. In the middle of the floor, three puzzles spread out in front of her, is a small girl in a tutu and a large purple hat. She leaps up when you walk in, bright green eyes sparkling. Her hair is a vibrant, striking red that falls in Goldilocks curls down to her shoulders. She’s inherited Terezi’s smile. “Hi, Terezi! Wanna play a game?”

“Sollux and I are gonna play Donkey Kong. You can watch.”

She pouts. “Are you sir? We can play dress-up!” Nepeta has a hard time pronouncing the “sh” sound.

“Maybe later.”

Nepeta crosses her arms, tucks her head into her chest, and stomps off.

You and Terezi have a very special way of playing. After you boot up the 64, you hand her a controller and turn on multiplayer. For being blind, she’s a wizard at DK 64, but she has help. You concentrate on both players at once, giving her directions and describing the surroundings to her.

“Mine cart,” you’re saying to Terezi when her dad calls for her and Nepeta. She gets up. “I’ll be right back.”

You wait for five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. You begin to fiddle with your shoelaces; the aglet’s coming off one of them, and you pick at the plastic with your fingernail, intending to put it out of its misery. Terezi comes back in, silent. She heads directly up the stairs to her bedroom. It’s like she forgot you were here. You follow her.

Terezi’s room is covered in paint. The rafters, which meet in a steep peak about eight feet above the floor, are the only things relatively safe from her muse. Sunlight streaks in from a window just above the bed, which has been tucked into a narrow alcove that’s just the right size. There aren’t really any walls to speak of, just ceiling, which Terezi traces her fingers along to make sure she doesn’t hit her head. In fact, she’s had fewer accidents with it that you have.

On one side of the room is an easel with a blank canvas on it, paints underneath. There are several completed projects propped up all around. It’s always amazed you how she can paint so beautifully. “I’m blind,” she told you once, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t see shapes in my head or learn about the things you can see. It’s just a different way.” She’s always talking about what the canvas “feels like;” she doesn’t use brushes or sponges, only her hands. And her art has this wonderful glow to it, like light always bleeds into darkness, until light is the same thing as darkness, and all of it is wonderfully connected with a million golden threads.

She heads to her bed and picks up a wrapped box. “Happy birthday, Sollux. She holds the box out with locked elbows, like you would break her arms if you refused the gift. You take it from her gently and begin to unwrap it, first untying the bow, then peeling the tape off until the paper is loose enough that you can slide the box out.

You lift the lid and gasp.

There are two games in there. Two games, but at the same time, there’s only one. Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages. The critically acclaimed dual addition to your favorite game franchise of all time: Legend of Zelda.

“Thank you!” Your voice is a high squeak, like a little boy. You hug her.

“I saved up for it all year,” she answers with a small smile. “I wanted to get you something really special.” She collapses on her bed then, as if she’s exhausted. You sit next to her and put your hand on her back. “What’th wrong?”

She puts her face in her hands. “Sollux… what my dad called me for… it’s… well, his job.”

“Did he get fired?” you ask, concerned. Terezi only lives with her dad, and you’re smart enough to know that means he’s their only way of getting money.

“Not exactly.” She takes a deep breath. “He got transferred. We’re moving in two weeks.”

Then neither of you can say anything, and time stretches on like that, like a piece of taffy, until minutes pass by in hours. When it snaps, you sprint out of her room, down the stairs, and out the front door. The sign is out there, and if you hadn’t come in through the back door, you would have seen it. _For Sale_. You kick it angrily, over and over, until your foot hurts and you notice the aglet on your shoelace has come off. Then you run home.


	2. Chapter 2

Terezi is at the bus stop the next morning, of course. You’re running late – emphasis on running. You nearly fall flat on your face tripping up the stairs, but you manage to get on the bus. You sit next to her because you’re not really sure what you would do otherwise.

“You left this at my house,” she says quietly, handing your games to you.

You thank her. “Thorry about latht night.”

“Me too.” She smiles. “Let’s just be together every minute for the next fourteen days. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

 

The day comes too soon. There’s a chill in the air as October races headfirst toward the chilly Minnesotan November. There aren’t many leaves left on the trees, just stark, brown branches against the empty blue sky. The color contrast alone makes you shiver, always has. Even so, you’ve always loved the October sky, the way it’s crisp and blue and cloudless, like you could sort of swim in it. You wonder if it’ll be the same for Terezi in Pennsylvania.

You drag your feet, but something pulls you forward, and even though you want to stop it, want it so hard you can imagine your feet and the feet of your shadow tearing clean apart, you can’t do it. Can’t control life. Can’t keep it from taking your only friend away from you.

Her station wagon is idling in the driveway; Nepeta is already strapped into her car seat. Her dad is standing in front of the house, hands on his hips. Just staring. The two of you join him.

He ruffles Terezi’s hair. “Ready to go, sport?” She nods, but doesn’t say anything. “I need to get my bag,” she says. She’s so quiet.

“It’s already in the car.”

She hangs her head; her dirty blonde hair covers her face. Then she whirls around, facing you with dirty cheeks. You stumble backwards when she leaps at you, flings her arms around your shoulders. “Please write,” she begs. “I’ll find a way to read whatever you send, I promise!”

“I will.” You both read the subtext in the words. _Please don’t ever let me go._

But you have to; you always have to. You think how cruel fate is, how cruel your shadow, that even this had to happen, and you are powerless to stop it.

She begins to walk away from you. “Wait!” You run to her and sling your backpack on the ground. “I got something for you.” You dig frantically in the pocket until you find a white plush dragon. Its eyes are made of red buttons.

“What is it?” she asks.

“It’th a dragon,” you answer.

“What’s its name?”

You shrug. “I dunno. You’re thuppothed to name it.”

She hugs it tightly. “Sollux.”

“That’th dumb. Give it a real name.”

She screws up her face, thinking. “Um… Pyralis. That means ‘of fire,’ I think. Like dragons!”

You laugh. “Yeah, I know. It’th Greek. Good enough, I gueth.”

“Come on, Terezi! We have to go!”

You both stand staring at each other a minute more, as if there’s something really important you should be saying, but you can’t think of what it is. In the end, Terezi just says, “See ya.” Then she gets in the car and closes the door with a loud slam. Hand pressed to the glass, she touches her wrist. You do the same.

You only start crying when the car falls from sight.

 

Backpack. Who needs it. Clothes. These’ll do. Lunch. You’ll need that. Where do they keep the food in this place?

You open every single drawer there is and find a jar of peanut butter but no bread. No lunch bags either, but you find an old grocery bag and throw the jar in there with a spoon. Good enough.

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you wish you were back with your mom.

Your grandma is knitting on the faded floral-patterned sofa in the living room. “Do you need a ride?” she asks, flurried gestures accompanying slightly slurred speech.

“No, Grandma.” Your hands speak as well, slower and more uncertain. You can never tell if you’re doing it right, so you usually raise your voice until it’s almost shouting so she can hear you. Even then, you’re not so certain how often you can reach her.

“Lunch money?”

“No, Grandma.”

“I love you, Karkat.”

“Okay, Grandma.”

You slam the door and stand breathing in the open air. Sometimes you feel like you spend your entire time in that house not breathing. The weight of the roof presses down on your chest, and _God_ do you hate the smell.

You shiver. It’s mid-November, but should it _really_ be this cold? Oh, that’s right. You forgot you moved to Minnesota. You walk to school because you don’t want to take the bus. It’s your first day of school today.

 

“All right everyone, settle in, settle in! Gamzee, sit down! No, not up there! In your _seat_ , Gamzee! Sollux! _Sollux!”_

The skinny young boy in the front is bent over a notepad. His forehead is nearly touching his desk, and his pen scratches rapidly. Man, that guy can write fast. The rest of the class starts to laugh. The boy with black hair and bronze skin – Gamzee – throws a ball of paper at him. He straightens finally. His face is kept carefully blank, but he flicks a wary glance at the boy two seats over. The seat between them is empty.

“We have a new student today,” the teacher announces. “She puts a hand on your shoulder, like she’s claiming you. You’ve had women doing that a lot lately, ever since you moved away from your mom. All of them trying to be your new mother, like that’ll make it all better. Wipe away the little boy’s booboo with a Band-Aid and a kiss. You shrug it off. She carries on like it didn’t even happen. “His name is Karkat Vantas. I’m sure you’ll all make him feel very welcome.” She gestures to the seat between the two boys. “You can have the empty seat there, Karkat.” Great, now you’re in the no-man’s-land of a proper war zone. She propels you in the right direction. This teacher is awfully touchy-feely for your taste. You plop down in your seat and notice the skinny kid staring at you. He has light brown hair that sticks out in tufts like wings – but it’s probably not half as messy as your hair, since you didn’t look in the mirror this morning.

Or last week.

His eyes are what really throw you for a loop. In fact, they make you kind of dizzy. One blue eye, one brown eye – this kid is just _weird_.

“Go stare at someone else, weirdo,” you hiss. He promptly whips his head back to his paper. Whatever he’s writing, it must be awful important. The teacher starts trying to teach you arithmetic. Arithmetic in the morning? Forget this.

 

You can’t help sneaking glances at this Karkat kid. Your fascination with him grows throughout the day. His bright, unkempt orange hair; his old, oversized clothes. The way his left shoe has a hole on the outside and he doesn’t have any shoelaces. He’s got a tiny cut along his right cheek and hard blue eyes that make him look like he’s always glaring when he looks at something. The first thing he said to you was an insult, but for some reason, it didn’t seem unkind. It just seemed… desperate.

You have snack time in between arithmetic and reading. You open your desk to fetch a plastic bag of animal crackers. Karkat just sits there, staring at someplace real hard, like he’s either trying to discern the pattern of the world by separating out the air, or just trying to make something burst into flames.

A girl with braided pigtails skips up to him. You could be wrong, but you think her name’s Abby… or Ashley… or Anna. One of those really popular names that half the girls in your grade have, so you have to go around calling them Abby H., Abby S., Abby K., like they wouldn’t figure out who you’re talking to otherwise.

Anyway, Abby-Ashley-Anna stands straight in front of Karkat’s desk. “Hey, Karkie!” Oh right. She’s one of _those_ girls. You know the ones. They have to put the “e” sound after every name just to be cute. They didn’t used to bother you that much, but you’ve had a lot of time to be bothered by things in the past few weeks. “Do you wanna share my Nillas with me?” She holds out a Ziploc bag filled to bursting with Nilla wafers. _You better be sharing with **someone**_ , you think.

“Shove off,” he snaps. His voice is naturally loud, like he’s used to shouting all the time. “Last time I checked, my name isn’t Karkie. It’s Kar _kat_ , Dumbo.”

“It’s my nickname for you! Do you like it?”

“It’s stupid. _You’re_ stupid. I don’t talk to any stupid people.”

Abby-Ashley-Anna fake cries all the way back to her circle of similarly named peers. Karkat bends down to fiddle with his shoe. Maybe it’s time you sharpened your pencil.

On your way past his desk, you slip some animal crackers on the top corner without him seeing. When you come back, something crunches underfoot and you look down. He’s swept your gift onto the floor. You shrug like it doesn’t bother you.

 

At lunch, you sit alone. Apparently word got around that you bullied that pigtail girl, because no one even tries to approach you. At least until that Sollux kid comes up with a tray of school food.

“Hi. What’th your name?”

You ask if he’s retarded, because the teacher said your name in front of the whole class, Dumbo.”

“I thought it wath good to athk. Bethideth, you shouldn’t use that word.”

Retarded? “ _Sorry._ My name is _Karkat Vantas_.” You say it real slow, laying every word on extra thick.

“My name ith Thollux Captor.”

“The hell kind of a name is Thollux?”

His eyes bug out, like your language threw him for a loop. “ _Thollux_.” He scowls, and when he does it, his nose wrinkles, like he’s trying really hard to concentrate. “ _Thollux_.” He gives up and draws an “S” in the air. “I have a lithp,” he admits. He sounds as though he’s telling you he has a disease.

Geez, this poor kid. Maybe you should put him out of his misery. You can’t decide if his discomfort is entertaining or annoying you. “I get it,” you sigh. “Sollux.”

He nods, looks relieved, but doesn’t stop fidgeting. “Can I thit here?”

“Don’t you have _friends_?” His answer, apparently, is to sit down right next to you. You scoot over irritably when your knees touch. He catches you eying his food as you take out your peanut butter. He pushes himself to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“The bathroom.”

“Too much information!” you call to him over the chatter as he leaves.

“Well, you _athked_!”

“You shake your head. You notice there’s something under his lunch tray. It’s his notepad. Well, he won’t know. You open to the last page and read it.

“Dear Terezi,

“It’s been almost a month now. No one’s moved into your house yet, but there’s this young couple that keeps coming to look. They look nice.

There’s a new kid in school today. He got your old seat. At first, I was kind of mad about that, but he seems okay. He’s probably going to get hit in the head a lot since he is right between me and Gamzee. I do not think he likes me very much, but maybe I will try to be his friend since he is not scary.

By the way,”

“What are you _doing_?” You jump. Sollux is back, and he looks furious. He snatches the notepad from you. “Don’t _touch_ that! Don’t you _ever_ touch that!” He throws himself back onto the bench next to you, but he scoots a little farther away. You both eat the rest of your lunch in frigid silence.

 

At recess, you sit on the swings like you used to do with Terezi. Just thinking. You’d hoped when you left to go to the bathroom, he’d take some of your food. But instead he’d gone through your notepad.

Karkat is pacing by the chain link fence with a long, gnarled stick. There’s a rapid, incessant clinking as he runs the stick along it, walking back and forth, back and forth. _Chink-chink-chink-chink-chink-chink-chink-chink._ A couple kids try to approach him, but he chases them, waving the stick and screaming violently.

You wonder why you aren’t scared of him.

 

You slip the rough fabric of your dress over your head. You don’t know if you object to the school uniform, but it really is itchy. Your blouse and tights only help a little bit.

Nepeta seems happy in the new school; as happy as she ever was. You… well, you have no complaints. At school, you get all A’s, even though you only go through the motions. You don’t have any friends. You do, however, have an enemy.

It always happens at recess. This girl – her name is Vriska – always comes up behind you, asks you questions. “Why are you blind? Don’t you think you should be in a special class, for blind people, instead of slowing the rest of us down?” When she figured out you had synesthesia, she made loud noises – “What does this taste like? And this?” She says things to her friends when she doesn’t think you can hear. Awful things. Mean things.

“I don’t want to go to school today,” you tell your dad as you eat your oatmeal beside your sister. He stops clattering in the sink. You feel a warm, dry hand on your forehead. He’s humming “Feed the Birds,” from Mary Poppins. “Are you sick?” he asks.

You nod.

“Where do you feel sick?”

You pause, realizing the flaw in your plan. Slowly, you shake your head. You hear air rush out his nose in a quiet sigh. He strokes your hair, his hand running from the top of your head to the back of your neck. You close your eyes, stay perfectly still. You remember a softer, a gentler one, doing this. It is just at the edge of your memory, along with a smell like flowers and a warmth in your spine.

“I know it’s hard,” your dad says in his kindest voice. “But I believe in you, Terezi.”

 _You might_ , you think, _but I don’t_.

 

“Get back here!”

“No way!”

“I said get back here!”

“I thought the point tag was the _opposite_ of that!”

“This isn’t tag, this is cops and robbers!”

“Same thing!”

You laugh as you run from the boy again, then stop a little outside his reach. Taunt, jump back, taunt, jump back. You’re _way_ too fast for everyone here.

“ _Daave_!” the kid whines.

“Try harder, Snuffleupagus!” You sprint away from him and climb to the top of the playground structure like a monkey.

“Get back here!”

“Will you quit saying that?” you laugh. “I’m not gonna!”

“Aw, leave ‘im,” some other kid says. “He always ruins the game anyway.”

You smile and survey the playground from your vantage point. You recognize that new girl, the blind one. What was her name? Something weird. Another girl with shiny, wavy, dark brown hair is dancing around her. _Her_ name you know. That’s Vriska Serket, the biggest bitch in school. You leap to the ground and edge closer to hear what’s going on.

“Where’s your mom, Terezi? Why don’t you have a mom? Where’d your mom go?” Terezi – that must be the blind girl’s name – looks like she’s trying to pinpoint Vriska by her voice, but the ponytail in a skirt (the girl has massive hair) keeps dancing in a circle around her, making it nearly impossible.

“Stop that!” she shouts. Her voice cracks. As she spins, trying to get a lock on her tormenter, she hooks one foot around the other and falls. You have a sour taste in your mouth. You’re about to go help her up when a little redhead runs into you. She stands between Vriska and Terezi, feet wide apart, arms thrown out in a protective gesture. She looks like a tiny starfish.

“Don’t touch!” she shouts, her voice high and squeaky. “See’s _my_ sister!”

“Oh yeah? What are _you_ gonna do about it?” The girl screeches when Vriska grabs her shoulder. The next think you know, she has four long scratches on her arm and a kindergartner’s mouth clamped around her hand. Now it’s Vriska’s turn to shriek as she shakes the kid frantically. You hide an indiscreet snort behind your hand.

“Why, you little…!” Uh-oh. This could get ugly. You can’t deny the squirt’s got spunk, but she’s got to be half Vriska’s height. Your about to step in again when yet another half-pint beats you to the punch.

He looks like another kindergartner, but he’s kind of big for his age. His hair is sleek and black and he’s got hands with long fingers that are curling into fists. When he speaks, his voice is soft, but threatening, like he’s straining to keep it in check. What a creepy little kid.

“Don’t. Get. Closer.”

Vriska laughs again. God, she’s got to have _the_ most annoying laugh in the world. It’s high and arrogant – so basically just like the rest of her. “How cute! Terezi, you’ve got an army of _runts_ fighting for you!”

The boy takes a few terrible swings at her, nearly losing his balance. Terrified that he’s now so close to her, he jumps back several steps. The little girl looks like she’s about to give her another beating. You decide you’ve let things go far enough.

“Everyone look at Vriska the Bitch!” you shout, loud enough for everyone to hear. Half the playground stops dead in their tracks. “Yeah, she took on a blind kid… and _won_! Buy your tickets now for the championship round… where she takes on TWO – that’s right, you heard me – TWO kindergartners… AT THE SAME TIME!”

Some kids start laughing. Others don’t know what to do with the situation, except start backing away. A girl runs off almost immediately to tell the playground supervisors about your foul mouth. One brave one asks why she doesn’t pick on someone her own size – yeah, real original, dude. She snarls at you – literally _snarls_ – and stomps off.

“Terezi, are you okay?!” the girl asks, helping her sister up. Terezi knocks her away.

“Stay out of it!” she shouts. “I don’t need your help! I don’t need any of your help! So why can’t everyone just stay out of it?!”

The little one’s face goes the wrong sort of shape, as a child’s does when trying to hold back tears. “I’m sorry!” She tries to hug her older sibling, who just shoves her roughly. “Go away!”

She lets out a high-pitched scream that turns into bawling, collapses on the dirt ground with a plop. Terezi storms away, but the boy, the boy stays. He kneels beside her, not sure whether to touch her, not sure whether to speak. But he stays. If they weren’t friends before, you think, they sure are now.

 

You slam the door behind you when you get home. Your brother, sitting on the sofa with his laptop between his knees, glances at you over his shoulder before going back to the screen. You’re not sure, but you think he codes websites for a living.

“How was school.” His voice is deep and quiet. You can tell by his tone what he’s doing. It’s monotone. He’s focusing, and even though he asked, he doesn’t really want to know.

“Good.” You find yourself mimicking him a lot, not out of mockery, but just… subconsciously. You don’t exactly know why. Your voice drops to match his; you strive for that same cavalier nonchalance without knowing how to do it or why you’d want to. Maybe you’ll have to find web tutorials for shaving and tying a tie and whatever else kids apparently really want to learn from their closest male relative, but you think your brother teaches you an awful lot in his own way.

Somehow, he manages to read your voice even though it’s not your own. Doesn’t even need to look at you.

“No it wasn’t.”

“No,” you sigh. “It wasn’t.” You plop beside him on the sofa, bend your knees outward and grasp your feet, pulling them towards you. You pretend you’re looking out the window, but you sneak glances at the screen to see what he’s working on. He snaps the computer shut before messing up your hair.

“No peeking.”

You shrug. “What’s for supper.”

“Man, it’s three in the afternoon. You expect me to be thinking about that now?”

You shrug again.

“I’ll beat them up.” This sentence takes you off guard, although not completely. It doesn’t sound like a threat, but more of an offer, mentioned in that offhand tone he has that makes everything seem like he considers it rather irrelevant. “Whoever’s bothering you,” he clarifies. “I’ll beat them up.”

“I don’t think she deserves that.”

He suddenly becomes very animated. “ _She?!_ ” He throws his arms up in the air. “Whoa-ho-ho!”

You punch him in the ribs. You know he only gets like that to bug the living hell out of you. “It’s not _like_ that!”

“You’ve got a _crush_ , little man! Gimme some fist!”

“Shut _up_!” You jump to your feet. “Why is _that_ … what it’s gotta be?!” You storm off. You hear him get up, half-following you. When you slam your bedroom door, he doesn’t come after you. You kind of wish he did, because now he’s just going to keep on thinking you like some girl.

You dig in your sock drawer until you find them. Your precious headphones. You plug them into your radio. Volume on high, world on mute. If your life has taught you anything, it’s when to turn it off.

 

It’s been two weeks since you met Karkat. He reminded you of a stray cat you found once, because it’d always been slinking around under the trees in your backyard. Fussy, stubborn, and convinced of its own independence. After the second day, he stopped insulting you when you came to sit by him. By Friday, he was taking your food when you left for the bathroom.  The next week he accepted your discreet offering of animal crackers.

Today there is no one sitting in his desk.

When you get home, your dad is watching the news. He never watches the news at this time of day. You’re not sure why, but you automatically think, “car crash.”

You aren’t far off.

“Ms. Vantas, criminally charged with intoxicated manslaughter, driving under the influence, and child neglect, is about to receive her verdict on all six charges.

“Dad…” you start. He quiets you with a hand.

“…State of Illinois vs. Karen Nicole Vantas…”

“Dad, ith that…”

“Shh, hold on, Sollux.”

“…As to the charge of intoxicated manslaughter, verdict as to count one, we, the jury, find the defendant guilty, so say we all. Dated at Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, on this twenty-fifth day of November, 2002. Signed, Foreperson.”

You clutch your knees to your chest as you sit on the floor. The man on the screen reads three more just like that. On the bottom of the screen, white capital letters roll across. “Karen Vantas – 4 counts of intoxicated manslaughter – guilty. Driving under the influence – guilty. Child neglect – guilty. The voice goes on, but a new picture comes on the screen. A young woman kneels on the ground, arms wrapped around three small children. The youngest one looks no more than three years old. After the camera follows a sobbing young woman being led out of the room, a newswoman comes on, holding a microphone close to her cherry-red lips. She sounds so fake-sad, you just want to cry for all the people who are _actually_ sad. Like Karen.

Like Karkat.

“The tragic fire that killed an innocent mother and her three children – the Peterson family remembered."

Your dad switches the T.V. off and finds you crying into your knees.


	3. Chapter 3

_Egregious harm…_

_My mom didn’t hurt me. She was sick. I could’ve taken care of her._

_Emotional maltreatment…_

_I was fine._

_Desires to be relieved of the child’s care and custody…_

_Of course he doesn’t want me. Always on business trips, always working. I didn’t want to live with those weird women always dropping by anyway._

_Custodial obligation is relinquished to the nearest family member…_

_I just want to be with Mom._

You sit on your hands on the raised garden at the edge of the playground. Tonk, tonk, tonk. Your left foot taps against the brick wall, swinging slightly because your feet don’t reach the ground. There’s a crack in the pavement where some grass has managed to grow. You’re so damn proud of that grass. You stare at it intensely, fingers wrapped tightly around the rough edges of brick so you don’t fall as you lean forward, forward…

Some brown-haired kid blocks your view. “Hey, Karkat!” His smile is big and guileless, but there’s something sad in his eyes that says you won’t like what he’s about to say. “I saw your mom on the news yesterday. Too bad…”

He doesn’t finish. You scream at him, jump, hands reaching out like claws, like talons. Then you’re on top of him, on the ground. You punch his face, once, twice, three times. They pull you off of him, and you’re screaming.

“Too bad?! TOO BAD! TOO BAD YOUR NOSE IS BROKEN! IS IT TOO BAD NOW?! I WILL _KILL_ YOU! _ALL_ OF YOU! LET ME GO! _I HATE YOU!_ ”

The boy is still on the ground. He’s got blood all over his face, and he’s crying. You really did break his nose.

The grass is crumpled and flat. It’s red now. Sollux stands several yards away, separated from the kids who crowd too close and take all the oxygen away from you. Wide-eyed. You struggle against three strong-armed adults that drag you inside, and for some reason your eyes are locked on that tall, skinny boy the whole time.

 

“Terezi, we need to talk.” Your dad sits on the couch beside you, or more like falls into the couch. The way he does when he’s tired and disappointed in you or Nepeta or just the world as a whole, the way he just keeps giving and it keeps sucking everything out of him, but he keeps giving it to them with a smile on his face because that’s who he is, and he knows that’s who he is and he’s happy by it.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I said I’m sorry.” You cross your arms, sulking. You aren’t really that sorry. About Nepeta. You’re sorry Vriska’s able to find out so much about you. You’re sorry that grown-ups gossip about the new kid in town while their own kids are listening to every word. You’re sorry the playground supervisors don’t care if you can’t bring justice to a girl who deserves it more than anyone but then care an awful lot if you try to sneak out the gap in the fence and run away from school. You’re sorry the world’s a vacuum that made your dad think he’d be able to make your life happier by moving out here and getting more money, but every day the two of you get worse and worse. You’re sorry because you can’t fix any of those things, only feel sorry about them.

“Sweetheart, come here.” He wraps his arm around you and pulls you closer so that you’re leaning into his chest. You keep your arms crossed, ensuring a barrier between the two of you. “Nepeta told me everything. You should have come to me.”

“I’m _sorry_.” You try to shrug away from him, but he holds you tight.

“Don’t apologize, Terezi. Don’t _ever_ think you need to apologize for something like that.” His hand on your back is strong and warm.

“But I was mean to Nepeta.”

“Who has already forgiven you. The question is, are you okay?”

“Yes,” you answer, trying again to get up.

“ _Terezi_.” His voice is firm. So is the hand he uses to grab your shoulder. “ _Are you okay_?”

“ _Yes!_ ” Your voice comes out a little harsher than you meant it. He’s silent for a moment. You are too. Both of you are perfectly still. The moment is frozen.

He gets up. The way grown-ups get out of couches sounds completely different from people your age. That is, adults get out of a couch, whereas kids get off of one. You wonder if one day you’ll sound like it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done. He calls for Nepeta.

“What’s up, Daddy?”

“Not much, cupcake. I just wanted to see who wants spaghetti tonight.” The way he says it, you can tell he has a smile on his face.

Nepeta squeals happy. “Me!”

“Me too!” you join excitedly.

Your father asks who’s going to help him. You both volunteer. You love cooking with your dad. You love the smells, the warmth. It smells like home.

 

“I jutht happened to be in the area,” you say. You fiddle with the pen in your pocket, clicking the top rapidly. He’s standing in front of you with his usual cargo pants and sweatshirt. The hood is pulled up over his bright orange hair, and he’s glaring at you with those hard blue eyes.

“Yeah, right.” He has one hand on the door and is only a sentence or two from shutting you out.

“I’m thorry you got thuthpended,” you try.

“I’m not.” Strike two. One more and you’re out.

“That kid detherved it, though.”

“Yeah.”

You shiver noticeably. It’s been a rather warm winter – sometimes it’s gotten into the forties or fifties, and with hardly any snow to speak of – but you feel like it’s below zero. Karkat is fire and ice – a chilling fury that leaves you feeling hollowed out inside.

“Can I…?”

“Yeah.” He says it before you finish your sentence. Then he steps aside. It isn’t a grandiose gesture with a sweep and a graceful sidestep. It’s a grudging, self-conscious shuffle backwards that bears the full weight of reality. You can see it on his shoulders, which stay proudly erect and square out of pure defiant determination. To you, Karkat Vantas seems like a superhero.

Just like Terezi.

“I brought thomething for you.” You snake your hand under your coat and grab the notepad you were keeping inside.

“I don’t want to read your lame diary,” he snaps.

“It’th an apology.”

“For _what?_ ”

“For getting mad.”

“You’re dumb.” He snatches the notepad out of your hands and buries his nose in it. He kicks the front door closed.

“Who’s Terezi?” he asks, without looking at you. He sounds honestly interested, which makes you a little excited, a little nervous.

“My friend. She moved the Pennthylvania.”

Karkat moves to your right. There’s an old couch on the far wall of the room, a coffee table, and in the corner adjacent to the door is a small T.V. that looks like it was last turned on in 1987. On the left is a short hallway with two doors, and straight in front of you is a small, circular dining room table with a vase of daisies and only one place set. Everything, even the flowers, seems faded, like a grey film has screened your vision. And Karkat is the vagrant ghost living in the haunted house.

You go back to watching Karkat read. He’s sitting on the couch, and his eyebrows are all drawn up. You’ve never seen anyone read with so much dedication. Then you realize he’s not reading your letter.

He’s reading Terezi’s.

You run to the couch and grab the printed sheet of paper from his hands. The corner rips slightly. He stares at you with open confusion, but stands up immediately to confront your sudden anger. You realize your mistake when you see the look on his face – the look that says he’s ready to defend himself. From _you._

You collapse onto the couch. One hand hides your face, the other offers the letter back to him. “I’m thorry,” you mutter. “I jutht… I’m thorry.”

He accepts the letter back quietly and stands in front of you, his head bent intently toward the paper. You watch him, but as irritation mounts again, you blurt out, “Why are you taking tho long?”

He glares angrily at you. “Shut up.”

“You look like you’re in _pain_.”

He throws the paper on the ground. “I can’t read this with you _picking_ at me the whole time! And why does your friend have to _type_ so small?”

“Do you need glatheth or thomething?”

_“No!”_ He stomps his foot to emphasize the word. You wince as his shoe crinkles the letter. He bows his head, crosses his arms protectively over his chest. “I’m dyslexic, okay? I can’t read things in small print.”

You stand, stoop down, and pick up the letter, straightening it carefully with your fingers. Then you gesture to the couch. You both sit down. You hold the paper between the two of you. “Read it to me.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“I jutht want to hear thomeone talk to me. I want to hear a _friend_ talk to me.”

He rolls his eyes. Actually, he rolls his whole body to drive home just how exasperated he is with you and how cheesy he thinks you are. His shoulders rise and fall in a wide circular motion. But he starts to read.

You listen. You don’t correct him or help him when he pauses. His voice sounds new. You’ve never heard him care, really _care_ before, but he cares so much about words from a person he’s never even met.

When he’s done, he looks at you. Something in his eyes searches for recognition, for an applause. You smile. He looks away almost immediately.

“Do you want some food?” he asks the floor. He spits the question out like he hates having to say it.

“Sure!” You jump to your feet.

He rolls his eyes again. “Well, you sure need it.”

Did Karkat just make a _joke?_ A real, honest-to-God _joke?_ It wasn’t a very _good_ one – actually, it was terrible. But you might have something to work with here.

And maybe, just maybe, you might have found a friend.

 

“Yo. _Hey. Over here_.”

You stop dead in your tracks, listening carefully to the voice. “You’re the kid from yesterday, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. I guess.” He sounds annoyed, like he doesn’t want to talk about that now. But you press on. You have to know who he is.

“Thanks. For protecting my sister.”

A shuffling sound as he kicks the ground. “You two make up or what?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good.” There’s a long silence. Suddenly, you feel five thin fingers wrap around your wrist. “C’mon,” the boy says. “This way.”

He leads you past the playground, the bitter taste of their screams fading from your mouth as you leave them behind.

“Where are we going?” you ask, following him with rapid steps.

“Edge of the playground. No one goes here. No only looks here.”

You start to feel a little worried now. His voice is cool and calm, but you’re used to hearing people’s voices, really listening to them, and you can hear his excitement like a high-pitched violin. “But why are we…?”

“Ooooooooh, Terezi found a knight in shining armor!”

You go stock-still. Your knees and elbows lock and your breath comes heavily through your nose. You don’t answer her. That would be the same as suicide. Sollux’s armor must be malfunctioning, because you feel yourself turning into a stone. Frozen, rooted to the earth, paralyzed, no more significant than you would be if Vriska ground you into dust.

“And we found a spider,” the boy answers. “Except I don’t think Terezi’s a damsel in distress.” You can hear the smile in his voice. It’s something that turns up just at the edges, warm and confident and bold. _Confident_ … in _you_. His warmth touches your fingertips, reminds you you’re not all stone and earth. He continues. “She seems to me like… hmm…”

“A dragon.” You grin. For the first time in weeks, this boy has given you hope. Something to fight for. Something to be a person for. You plant your feet wide apart and place your cane between your shoes, bowing your head to show that you are not going to move, you are not going to budge, for anything. You begin to hear again, and with listening comes a sort of sense, a pressure on your body, on your head. You can feel the boy to your left with his calm, steady breath. You match his war march rhythm and cancel the sound, but you can feel him beside you, a touch that isn’t there. You are close and strong together.

You hear Vriska’s uneasy shifting in front of you. The soles of her feet scuff against the ground. The boy made her think twice. You’re going to make her regret thinking once.

Then, suddenly, a quick flurry of movement. A grunt of effort, a shuffle of four feet. “I’ve got her!” the boy shouts.

Your pace does not match his urgency. Too much of you is still a stone, and that is only Vriska’s fault. You are deliberate. Calm. Cold. And with your cold cane, you exact your revenge. The taste of the harsh _whap_ is pleasantly sour. One, two, three. Four, five, six. Seven, eight…

“Ow, ow, Terezi, _stop!_ ” the boy cries. “I let her go.”

“ _Why?_ ”

The boy laughs softly, a deep, warm laugh made of summer sun and cicadas and crows taunting each other from their trees. “She looked like she’d had enough right after she started gushing blood from her nose.” You smile back at him. “Sorry,” he says, “I don’t think I’ve introduced myself. I’m Dave. Dave Strider.”

“Terezi Pyrope.” You hold out your hand and he shakes it. “You’re pretty cool, Dave.”

“So are you.” He lets out a massive sigh. “Do you have an ice pack? Like in your lunchbox or anything?”

“No. Why?”

“Think you gave me a black eye.”

For whatever reason, you both start cracking up. “That was _totally_ awesome!” you force out between giggles.

“You were the best… part of it!” Dave answers. He gets around to controlling himself eventually, then sighs with the release of someone who’s just had quite a good laugh. “Ah, I wouldn’t have missed that for a trophy at cops and robbers. Do you wanna come over to my house today?”

“Sure!” You give him a wide, toothy grin. You’ve finally found a friend.

 

“Dear Sollux (and Karkat!),

“I can’t believe we’re in fifth grade already! I feel like I’m the queen of the school now! Or maybe more like head honcho vigilante – that’s what I decided me and Dave are, by the way, vigilantes! That’s a cool word. You guys still have one more year to go until junior high, huh? Sucks to be you!

“I think it’s great that you’re in the school orchestra now, Sollux! Dave and I play music too sometimes. He has a keyboard I can play and he does weird techno stuff that makes even Für Elise sound good! Did you know his big brother could rap? I heard him one time when he didn’t know we were there and he’s amazing! Did you know we don’t get break in October over here? That’s so dumb! Anyway, happy MEA break, you lucky Minnesotans!”

“From Terezi.

“P.S. Dave is here too sup.”

You smile. Karkat’s gotten a lot better at reading in the past year. He sits beside you in perfect stillness for a moment more, hanging onto the words in the letter as long as he can. One thing you’ve learned about Karkat is that he’s addicted to the happiness of others. But sometimes you wish some of Terezi’s sunshine could stay on his face. He can become its host, its medium, for a short while, but he could never hold it in his heart. After almost a year, Karkat is still a closed door.

He puts the letter down and thumbs his nose. In the kitchen, you can hear – and smell – his grandma baking. You shift your weight as segue to a change of topic. “Wanna watch a movie?”

He shrugs. “If you like old rom-coms. It’s the only thing my grandma has.”

“Sure, why not.”

He rolls his eyes like he can’t believe your acceptance. Then he gets up and puts something in the DVD player.

Halfway through the movie, Karkat is curled up with his chin on his knees. His mouth keeps twitching upwards, like a constant itch. He catches you staring at him with a smile on your face and scowls. “Shove off.”

“I only thought it wath funny!” you answer honestly.

“What’s funny?” He turns away from the screen, turns full around on the sofa and crosses his legs in front of him. There’s that deep, boiling anger in his eyes, the same look he always has, but disturbed by something else, a monster just now coming to the surface. Ripples on the water. “What’s funny? Me smiling?”

You work your mouth, your tongue straining to come out from your throat and only sinking deeper, choking the words. Your eyebrows wrinkle the skin at the corners of your eyes, burrow down into your eyelids and scrunch your face into a big question mark.

“Me, thinking something’s fun, having fun? It’s funny? Funny, like you laugh at it? Or funny like you just can’t figure it out, something’s wrong because Karkat thinks something’s funny.” He sighs, scratches the top of his head real hard, like if he could get the skin and bone off his brain he could think better, things wouldn’t be so cloudy, he’d _understand_. He sighs again. He can’t express himself very well a lot of the time; he does it in sighs and rolling eyes. “I used to think things were funny, you know. I used to… oh, what’s it matter.”

Tapping your fingers on your knee the way your dad does when he’s working and chewing your tongue, you try to come up with something you can say. No, not something you can say. Something he needs you to say. “Me too,” comes out. It sounds so dumb, this commiseration. “Me too.”

Karkat stares at you for a really long time. “You’re not saying we’re the same. You can’t say that.”

Your lip starts to feel a little ragged as you work it between your teeth. “No,” you answer carefully. “Well, yeah. Maybe a little.” Karkat’s eyes widen, a sign you’ve long since understood means he’s losing control, about to start catapulting in one direction or another. You hasten to finish. “Look, I don’t have a mom. I’ve got two really great dadth, and at leatht one of them’th alwayth there, becauthe Dad workth at a firm all day and Deuthe doeth concerth at night. And Deuthe ith really cool and I call him by hith name because he wanth to be cool tho bad, even though he ith already, but people never ever realize that do they, and he worrieth about me too much, and he’th goofy and Dad’th theriouth and I have no idea what I am but I think being in the middle ith good. But I’m not normal. And… and no one’th really normal. Maybe you live with your grandma becauthe your dad’th always working like my dad and he doethn’t have thomeone cool like Deuthe to help him with a kid. Terezi’th got a dad and a thithter and Dave’th got a brother and you’ve got a grandma and I’ve got two dadth and we’ve all jutht got what we’ve got. And that’th not it, becauthe I could be you, and you could be me. I could have two dadth and I could punch things all the time, or I could have jutht a grandma and thtill be me. But maybe it doethn’t all matter becauthe we could be the same in tiny wayth and we don’t know it because no one ever trieth to find that thtuff out and no one ever wanth to. And that’th dumb. Why do we have to be alone? It’th jutht dumb.”

Karkat dives at your face, and you try to shield yourself, curl up in a ball. He grabs your cheeks and pulls them, his knees digging into your chest. “ _You’re_ dumb!” He looks at your face and laughs, suddenly and loudly.

“Karkah, leh go! Ow!” you cry indignantly, but you’re laughing a little too, the surprise pulling you down by the heels. If Karkat is fire and ice, his laugh is fireworks. And you’re both wonderstruck.

Unable to get out from underneath Karkat’s jabbing knees, you reach out with both hands and tickle him as hard as you can. He leaps back with a most undignified squeal, which he cuts short before anyone realizes that underneath the glares, the sighs, the rolling eyes, here stands a young boy like any other, who just needs someone willing enough to see him.

You both look at the T.V. screen at the same moment. The two main characters are finally making out; you just make a face. “I think we mithed thomething.”

“Whatever.” Karkat shrugs. “Let’s go to the park.”


End file.
